In Obamacare, the President’s Disregard for Consent of the Governed

Congress and the President have low approval ratings because Congress and the President continue to ignore the will of the American people. One reason for this disapproval is ObamaCare – the President’s signature health care “reform” law.

According to Real Clear Politics (RCP), the average approval rating for the President is 43.0% approval and 53.2% disapproval. RCP has Congressional job approval at a dismal 12.3% approval and 84.0% disapproval. These numbers indicate anger and rage toward federally elected politicians.

Lachlan Markay wrote on The Foundry yesterday that HHS Secretary Sebelius is voicing support for an unpopular, ineffective entitlement program with the claim that ObamaCare “is as important as the civil rights law.”

A top advisor to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently compared opposition to the administration’s new health care law to opposition to the 1960s civil rights movement, Politico Pro reported.

Yesterday the Kaiser Family Foundation released a poll that indicates that 44% of the American people view ObamaCare unfavorably versus 39% favorably. This same poll had the unfavorable number at 50% in July of 2010 and 50% in January of this year. The numbers of Americans who view the law favorably has dropped below 40% for the first time since July of 2010. These numbers do not bode well for ObamaCare.

Rasmussen’s tracking poll on ObamaCare indicates that 57% of Americans want ObamaCare repealed versus 37% who oppose repeal. According to Rasmussen, the number of Americans who favor repeal has been over 50%, with one exception, since the bill was signed into law on March 23, 2010. In March of this year the number of Americans supporting repeal hit 62%. The logical conclusion to a dispassionate reading of these two polls is that ObamaCare is unpopular and most Americans support repeal.

The implication by Sebelius is that opponents to a government take-over of health care are the functional equivalent to those who opposed civil rights. This is an outrageous statement by the Secretary of HHS and an attempted justification for the dismal approval ratings for ObamaCare. Sebelius clearly wants to name call opponents in an effort to bully them into submission.

Our nation is founded on the idea of the consent of the governed. Participation by the American people is a continuous process, and the First Amendment to the Constitution allows them to “petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Americans can’t be involved in the process when they are deliberately shut out.

The American people feel shut out of the legislative process when politicians engage in secret closed door meeting to craft legislation. They are outraged when Congress passes, and the President signs, legislation into law that they oppose. ObamaCare is merely one of many examples of this action by politicians that contravene the will of citizens. An immediate repeal of ObamaCare would help politicians in our Nation’s Capitol to regain the trust and consent of the American people.

Join The Discussion

The Beltway’s social progressive demagogues do have a point. If the American people didn’t want Obamacare, then why did an electoral majority give total control of congress and the White House over to the lefty’s three stooges? It’s this fact that allowed Obamacare to be forced on the country. Now everyone is hanging their hopes on the Supreme Court and Justice Kennedy’s conservative side to stop this overreaching federal law. Let’s hope this final check is able to save what remains of federalism under our founders' representative design.

The American People need to realize that there are three branches of Govt, designed to be seperate, they serve as checks and balances and designed to quell and eliminate Tyranny. It was a wonderful idea, a masterful experiment in the battle for freedom. However, over time they have evolved into a Tyranical Triad dedicated to stripping "the people" of rights and freedom. Wake up, quit playing the part of the "Lame". "We The People………"

I agree with your thought process, but as long as Obama is President he will shove things down our throats whetter we like them or not. Obama doesn't really care what the people like or dislike. If we give him another 4 years in the White House, we won't recognize our country by the time he's through with us. I cannot believe how many Americans don't see this! Although I do believe more people are beginning to see what's going on here.

You can hardly recognize the country now after three years! I am tired of elected politicians calling the citizens who elected them 'terrorists' or 'hostage takers'. The fact that the House and Senate tolerate it, but then the Democrat side participates in it.

If we can make it to the 2012 election, any politician with more than two terms should be removed from office. Ess=pecially the Democrats with their new 'Hope and Smear' policy. Maybe it should be 'Smear and Hope'!

Passing the bill that-they-had-to-pass-to-see-what's-in-it at midnight on a Saturday night/Sunday morning when our elected officials were isolated from their constituency's fury only served to put fuel on the fire of the "disregard for consent of the governed", IMHO.

"One reason for this disapproval is ObamaCare – the President’s signature health care “reform” law." This is a fundamentally flawed conclusion. The 2010 elections were about ObamaCare, and yes, people were pissed. But the current distrust in government has more to do with the inability of Tea Partiers–who held the debt ceiling hostage in order to secure draconian cuts–to take 'yes' for an answer. You don't pass on the chance to fundamentally change the course of debt accumilation in this country in order to poke the president in the eye…unless you're the Tea Partiers. Furthermore, you can't first vote to spend money, and then refuse vote against paying the bill.

to continue: The president's inability to offer a coherent plan of his own was overshadowed by the Tea Party's nonsensical economic policies, which, by the way, are KILLING jobs around the country. It is the most irresponsible, ignorant move that they could have made, and it's making people re-think giving ANY control of governement over to the Republicans. Party and policy purity is going to be the GOP's demise. Republicans used to be fiscally conservative, now they've moved on to become radical fiscal jihadists…eshewing even tax cuts because Obama is asking for them. So IMHO, Tea Partiers should get a grip. Or maybe it's Republicans who need to get the grip on them…! Sheesh!!

It will soon come to pass where the Federal Government will not longer be able to borrow money to pay for Entitlements. What will happen then Lee? We will be forced to make the draconian cuts or the federal government will have to take over all wealth, property and liberties in this country. We as a country have to cut expenses. Spending a trillion dollars plus each year over revenue is ludicrous. It is not a sustainable model. Can you spend and keep borrowing way over your income? Can you say bankrupt? It is the small minded people that cannot see we are on a downward spiral as a country. Obamacare will break this country. We will not be able to recover. The Tea Party is right. We need to cut spending. There are not enough millionaires or billionaires to tax that will reduce the deficit even if you take all of their holdings. Get real and smell the coffee, Lee. You do not speak intelligently on this subject because you can not see past your politics. This is not about politics. It is about saving our country from total disaster and occupation by forces opposed to freedom. Look at your History at the Weimar Republic, 1918-33 and the hyperinflation that . hit Germany during those years. It is the same path we follow today. Can you say National Socialist Party or worse, yet, Sharia Law?

Payback is heck ain't it? I had tax breaks for millionaires shoved down my throat by shrub, I had two wars; one illegal shoved down my throat, I had my freedom taken away by the Patriot act and you guys are whining about giving healthcare to people who are dying… hmm.. yeah Conservatives really have a grip on what we need. By the way where are the jobs. I love in NC and since Republicans took control of our government our unemployment rate keeps climbing. I am not sure how much more Conservative policies our country can survive. At least Democrats still hold public meetings unlike Republicans who have to hide from the angry mobs.

Our freshman representative does show up and meet with his constituency. Many of whom are far left social progressive types. Yea, they're an angry mob alright. They've been sure to disrupt and make a mockery of every visit by the congressman. If that isn't enough, the local media purposely misquotes the congressman and/or manufactures statements he never said. It's pure projection by these leftist wing nuts. They can't sit still enough and objectively listen to what the man has to say. The democrat congressman who was unseated filled these lefty clowns full of empty rhetoric and promises of evermore big government graft. Payback?

Remember that the Democrats held control of Congress during the last two years of Bush's term. Bush spent a lot of money, but Obama has raised the deficit 4 trillion dollars since 2009. Look at the numbers. The republicans only control one part of Government. The Senate and Presidency is still controlled by Democrats. You cannot say this is the Republicans fault. Elect both house and Presidency with a true Conservative Agenda and you will see your jobs come back. The Government can not create jobs. It is the old saying, rob Peter( the taxpayers) to pay Paul ( the non tazoayers). Instead of putting the money paid in taxes into the government coffers, you take it away from the public which would spend it, creating demand for products, which would create new jobs, which would raise revenue for the government the correct way. There are not enough billionaires nor millionaires to tax to pay for spending a trillion dollars each year over the money brought into the government. We can not continue to borrow money from other countries. Just like the banks will cut you off from borrowing money, the world will cut us off one day. Keep money in the hands of the people, not the Federal Government.

What do we need that conservatives don't have a grip on? personal responsibilities handled by democratic, social government? In case your brain has the ability to open to the clear fact that the unemployment rate keeps climbing because the president won't let companies run without dumping regulations imposed by abuse of executive order beyond congress while increase costs on all will help you see where the problem needs correction and where republicans are doing what's possible to correct.

It is appreciated that democrats hold public meetings to expose their hatred of America and fellow Americans where their only efforts aren't to correct the issues at hand they're paid to but to slander and defame the good will of America(ns).

This is borderline insane. We have a Republican congress that has decimated the majority-rule, representative democracy envisioned by the authors of the Constitution whom the right wishes to claim as their soulmates. There is now a 60 vote threshold to engage in any common business in the Senate–the formerly dull debt-limit vote, for example–and a single congressman can prevent a confirmation or a vote on a bill. How loudly did you howl when Republicans in the last administration held open the vote for the Bush tax cuts, until the VP could "shove it down the throats of the public?" Your indignation is a sham.

It is not a question of what the masses ''like or dislike.'' It is the fact, which the President knows, that the masses are not sufficiently enlightened to understand the benign intent and aims of his programs. Fortunately, there is a large enough vanguard of a sufficiently enlightened intelligentsia to advance the transformative agenda the country needs even in the face of opposition from the unenlightened and against obstacles such as the 18th century constitution that the opposition clings to. Only when the transformation is under way will the masses feel its benefits, understand the leading elite's good intentions for them, and comply.

The latest from HHS – they have the right to bully commercial insurers who want to raise their rates. The Secretary has decided that any rate increase over 10% (let's ignore all the new rules and mandates and benefits ObamaCare has imposted on them) is unreasonable. Previously, she noted that insurers who "claimed" that their rate increases were the result of new mandates and benefits required by the federal government MIGHT NOT BE INCLUDED in the state insurance exchanges. Now she's going to publish their "outrageous" claims on the HHS website. At the current time, she doesn't have the power to force state insurance commissions to deny increases over 10%…..but it's just a matter of time. Perhaps an executive order?

Why this unconstitutional monstrosity has to waste so much time, money, and human energy to overturn is beyond me when 60% of the American people were opposed. And now we are expected to pay the tax, called a fine, if we don't comply? This is taxation without representation which has proven the hallmark for this corrupt administration. Time for that change we all can really believe in – this Usurper had enough time to prove himself.

We have to get this monster out of the WH before he destroys this country more than he already has. Why is everyone so afraid to do anything against this evil being? America needs to wake up & do something about him & the members of Congress who will no nothing. We need to have a clean slate & start all over again to get people in power who will get this country back on its feet. Come on People!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's getting harder and harder to understand why anyone is surprised that Obama has a "disregard for
Consent of the Governed". Don't we get it yet. Obama doesn't care what the people want or expect. He has an agenda and will not let anyone or anything stand in his way to complete that agenda.

If Obama cared one wit about the "will of the people" he would not have paid the bribes that forced ObamaCare down our throats. Wake up American. Almost every day Obama is taking steps to
destroy America as we know it and he is not going to stop until we stop him.

Yes sirre, opposing a nationalized heath care program that MANDATES that everyone buy "their junk insurance" ranks right up there with MLK's 1960s civil rights movement!!! And MLK would be SO PROUD that some white folk in HHS have FINALLY made that connection . . . . tell me one more time what that connection is!

You bet, there are literally MILLIONS of Americans who cannot and do not get health care. They can't go to the emergency room, they can't go to the local free clinics, they can't go sign up for one of our handy-dandy government programs that takes care of their every need for life, they have no family to help them, they have no churches that would help them. No sir, there is not a single place in this third world country they can go for help, and they are literally dying in the streets by the thousands every single day.

Good Lord, does no one in this country have any common sense anymore? The gene pool must have lost the chromosome that dictates that each human being be given at least a small dose of that commodity; otherwise, we are in worse shape than I thought. And just a side note, if the only way that HHS can sell the Obamacare program is by connecting it to the civil rights movement, then it is way past time to get some new people in there and quit treating the American people like they are stupid or brain-dead!

No president in my memory (60+ years) has so much time sticking his finger in the eye of so many Americans.
No other Prez has:
1. For someone who taught the constitution he sure has found a lot of ways to go around it.
2. For 2 years he Nancy/Reid Obama did nothing but romp, stomp and shove anything they could think of down our throats via the power of the office.
3. For 3 years there was NO federal budget, as the constitution requires.
4. They used CR's (continuing resolutions) to spend us into financial Armageddon.
5. They single handed engineered the 1st downgrading of US debt.
6. They spent the US into a deficit of $5 trillion in less than 3 years. Two and a half times faster than Bush did in 8 years.
7. This year the Ds have spent $3.6 trillion and caused a deficit in 2011 of $1.45 Trillion.
They got here the old fashioned way, 'they spent the money of our generations to come.'

1) Whether the health care law is unconstitutional is yet to be decided and uncontroversial. However, public civilian trials are constitutional, which Obama tried to do for the 9/11 hijackers. The 10 years they sat in prison with no charges is unconstitutional.
2) Romp stomp and shove? People knew what was in the health care bill for a year before it passed. Only the details were last minute.
3) The lack of federal budget is the responsibility of both parties. The senate filibuster means that the minority Repubs could block it.
4) The CR were because of 3. Letting the government shut down instead would have been financial armegeddon.
5) Republicans caused the downgrade. S&P was explicit that the inability to raise taxes to balance the budget was one of the main reasons for the downgrade.
6) Obama had a financial crash to contribute to the deficit. Recessions always have higher deficits because there is less gov't revenue and more spending on unemployment and welfare. Bush had a surplus and a perfectly good economy when he ran up the debt, leaving our country with little we could do to respond to a economic crisis when we needed.
7) See six above. Most of the deficit is response to the economic crisis and temporary or a result of Bush's debt-creating policies that mostly remain intact.

The crash was caused by the housing market (i.e the policies of FannieMae/FreddyMac) selling thousands of homes to people who couldn't afford them. The crash was 4 years ago. Under Obama, we have added $4.3 Trillion to the deficit ABOVE AND BEYOND the costs of the financial crash. We were told Keynesian economics, the same economics that caused the Great Depression, would work this time, with unemployment under 8%. S&P threatened the downgrade if the gov't. didn't cut at least $4 Trillion from the budget, they cut $2 Trillion. Several courts have declared ObamaCare unconstitutional and a majority of states have filled to halt its enactment. The details were last minute? You mean like the 3.8% of your home sale ObamaCare will extract come 2014? Yeah, I'm sure everyone knew about that one. Or the government latching onto your checking account for payment. What is it you people wish to believe? That this is the right way to go about things? Marx wasn't this delusional. Stop making excuses, your President hasn't done squat after 2 and a half years. From the looks of it, the next 18 months will be less than squat. Sayonara!

We think were in bad shape now-wait until we give amnesty to the 12 or 15 more millions of illegals. Social Security is broke now-how are you going to add at least 1/2 to 2/3rds of them to our social programs. I don't want to pay for them-do you? No one has even mentioned that situation and I don't believe the D's haven't thought of it because once their on the dole, their never getting off. Plus you better spend all your money now, because Obama has plans to have access to your bank accounts–check page 58 of Obamacare.

You make some very good points, but I think political analysts view things differently than the average American… in many ways, they attempt to shape our views by presenting their case to the public.

Yes, Obamacare is a catastrophe – it does not improve health care costs, it just shifts them from the consumer to the tax payer. It ignores the FACT that Medicare and Medicaid payments continue to set the low standard for care and expense.

But its more than that…

President Obama's numbers are taking a beating because he appears on television, almost daily, to clarify a position and spew rhetoric to pit American against American. He is a negotiator who shows no true leadership qualities. As with all politicians, the blame game will only get you so far…

Congress' low numbers reflect the amount of people who have been paying attention the words of Congressional representatives like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Lindsey Graham, Richard Lugar, John Kerry, John McCain, and John Boehner only to see some of the stupidest remarks made in Congressional history by these "seniority" representatives.

On a side note: President Barack Obama has, exclusively, gotten more people involved in paying attention to the actions of their government than almost any other previous Presidential administration since Ronald Reagan. The only problem is, they aren't cheering.

Obamacare is taxation without representation – Congress did not represent the wishes of We the People. I will ignore Obamacare as well as the Usurper in Chief. We must remove this ineligible resident.http://www.ccaabo.com
Citizens Class Action Against Barack Obama

Don’t have time to read the Washington Post or New York Times? Then get The Morning Bell, an early morning edition of the day’s most important political news, conservative commentary and original reporting from a team committed to following the truth no matter where it leads.

Email address

Ever feel like the only difference between the New York Times and Washington Post is the name? We do. Try the Morning Bell and get the day’s most important news and commentary from a team committed to the truth in formats that respect your time…and your intelligence.